Life Education Australia annual review 2O1O - Hunter Life Education

What we doWe build the capability of young people bychallenging their values and attitudes, expandingtheir knowledge and developing their skills.We motivate, encourage and empowerthem to exercise informed, healthy,lifestyle choices.Our program assists children andyoung people to achieve the followingoutcomes:• acquire age appropriate knowledgesupporting informed health choices• develop and practice skills andstrategies to act upon their decisions• recognise values and attitudes thatmay influence lifestyle choices andbehaviour.We have developed a unique andinnovative program - a combinationof our skilled Educators, our MobileLearning Centres and our suite ofstudent and teacher resources, as wellas our iconic mascot, Healthy Harold theGiraffe - which is used to complementlearning in the early years.We work at scale - employing 100specialist Educators and maintaining 90Mobile Learning Centres.We work with and through schools - in2010 we partnered with 3,224 schools,worked directly with approximately24,000 teachers and delivered ourprogram to 610,000 students all ofwhom visited our Mobile LearningCentres and worked interactively withour Educators.Our sessions are designed to be agespecific and sequential. Ideally sessionswould be delivered year-on-year,consistent with the partnership we seekto foster with schools.Ten modules make up the primaryschool program, focusing on personalsafety, body knowledge, self-assertionskills, healthy lifestyles, relationships,friendships and bullying, responding topeer pressure, the safe use of medicines,the effects of smoking, and alcohol andrelated social issues.The sessions for primary school childrenand their teachers are delivered on theschool grounds in specially equippedMobile Learning Centres by specialistEducators.Our secondary school program,delivered in the schools, offers alcohol,tobacco and illicit drugs modules.Schools are provided with teacher andstudent manuals and access to otherresources to reinforce and extendsessions taught by our Educators.Parents and guardians are encouragedto get involved by visiting theMobile Learning Centre and also byparticipating in family forums andinformation sessions, which providethe opportunity to share views withother parents and children, increaseknowledge and develop more strategiesto support the healthy development oftheir children.7